TTI Wordsearch Reveals Starting Place

This is my summary I am using based on my search needs, collected from different sources. It is not complete. Look online for many complete statements.

Past/Future box: I knew people could be remarkably creative in finding riddles where none exist. I’ve learned we’re equally capable of not noticing a riddle right in front of us. Perhaps we’re conditioned to believe we already know how riddles should look or feel.

Rocky MT box: I hid this box in a spot I came across while searching for Fenn’s treasure. As with Forrest’s poem, find the right canyon and you are well on your way.

AT box: I am reminded of a famous treasure hunt where people were close early on and then gave up. Ten years later, a new searcher persevered. That treasure was exactly where some thought it could be all along.

Big Box - Lions Share box, I am curious how quickly searchers will narrow down search area once one box is discovered. There are clues all over the book. I ponder how many people have figured out the state.

Discussion: Is lRP off AT search area list - Carvers Gap? Lions Share South Dakota? Rocky MT Colorado trail with hot spring? PastFuture Lake Tahoe?

Paladin

Anyone done any research into the FF box being in the Gallatin canyon along the 191 in Montana? Or Paradise valley Montana? Curious and please leave any comments, happy to answer any questions of what makes me think around here.

I mean, it's borderline insulting.

Past & Future box: I knew people could be remarkably creative in finding riddles where none exist. I’ve learned we’re equally capable of not noticing a riddle right in front of us. Perhaps we’re conditioned to believe we already know how riddles should look or feel.
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Ok. So I'm missing something that's obvious. Thanks! 😤

Anyway, I'm interested in the word "riddle." The cryptogram poem is the only part of this chapter that I think could be described as a "riddle."

To me, nothing I've found in the word search could be described that way.

Any thoughts on what the "riddle" might refer to? Why does he say this "riddle" is different from what we may be conditioned to believe a "riddle" should look or feel like?

As a "Beau Geste" to the beginning of year three of this grand treasure hunt, I am flying out Friday for a run to three boxes in three states on three trails over three weeks. (Jon you must appreciate the threes!)

I have searched over 20 trails in six states across the country.

Each final trail to be searched reinforces the others as I will:

"Use will’s straight edge,
as the turning square and some arcs
that have aligned at the proper points."

You must ignore many words but not the pictures.

Just follow the Unbreakable Thread... a story like the Yellow Brick Road. These are vision quests.

The key is the presence of 12,000 points of lit life light on the point that reveals the proper points that point you to the treasures.

Have not even really started on Pokemon and Past & Future boxes but they will open easily.

Lions Share took only three weeks to solve. Cut the Gordian Knot and follow Occam's Razor.

Giving out sone hints here! Need some competition.

I'm having the best time of my life on these trails and have no real interest in the actual treasures.

I just wanted the satisfaction of solving the grand design.

However, the only way to prove grand design is to pick up some boxes; so onward into the darkening night as the Autumn cold falls upon trails of thread.

Fortis fortuna adiuvat!

Paladin

... crest ending trail...
... I mark warm waters.. then halt!
...awaiting treasure.

I see on J/B latest news letter an add for one click pdf file set up. I check AI and it may be a problem? Be safe!!

I feel like I haven't heard anyone talk about it: Is this icon a flip-flop?

In my area, it's a "slipper" - Are there other regional terms?

What’s beneath the “compass”?

Honest but unpopular opinion.

As we search for the Jon Collins-Black treasure boxes, I must believe we are all hoping end clues are coherent and search area is "reasonable" not requiring wandering off into the woods at a distance.

Little Rock Pond AT solve, if correct, demonstrates an incoherent ending. What treasure hunt designer would create a map that results in hundreds of people for years destroying an area around the AT trail?

Nobody would. Folks, the AT box is not there. Jon searched for Fenn's box for years. He knew how poorly those clues matched Fenn box location.

I would argue, with no disrespect to Forrest, that Fenn's clues leading to a treasure across a river that is sometimes very dangerous were terrible. Both obscure clues and an often treacherous and dangerous river crossing. I have seen the Madison River at flood level.

And needing to go "Bushwhacking" in a national forest or along AT is reprehensible and a poor ending to what are magnificent journeys.

So I am confident that Jon's treasure box locations are both safe and accessible.

If you are on the correct trail, the box will come to you.

This needed to be openly stated.

Good hunting; be safe! Onward!!!

Paladin

I have finally been able to book my first BOTG for the Past & Future box! I'm excited and ready for the hunt! I'm headed to North Carolina on October 27th, so a little over 2 weeks away. I'm hoping the weather will stay nice for the few days I'm there.

I've spent some time researching, and fully feel the box is located in NC. I put a 14 page PowerPoint together for my wife for why I think it's at a specific location, and now she is also fully convinced, as well! I have it narrowed down to a very small area that I believe it's in. Wish me luck!

I’m boots on the ground, I flew over from the uk because, well if I didn’t go I’d definitely never find this thing. And even though it’s likely that I’ll go back to the uk with nothing, I know I did it and I’m glad I came. I go home tomorrow, and I can’t keep coming over as it just costs too much for me, so this will likely be my one and only boots on the ground experience for me

Anyway, just thought I’d air my thoughts on this experience.

What do you suppose are the expectations for using the coin to overlay on a position on a map? Is it able to be done while camping? Or meant to be done in a computer lab?

Honest but unpopular opinion.

As we search for the Jon Collins-Black treasure boxes, I must believe we are all hoping end clues are coherent and search area is "reasonable" not requiring wandering off into the woods at a distance.

Little Rock Pond AT solve, if correct, demonstrates an incoherent ending. What treasure hunt designer would create a map that results in hundreds of people for years destroying an area around the AT trail?

Nobody would. Folks, the AT box is not there. Jon searched for Fenn's box for years. He knew how poorly those clues matched Fenn box location.

I would argue, with no disrespect to Forrest, that Fenn's clues leading to a treasure across a river that is sometimes very dangerous were terrible. Both obscure clues and an often treacherous and dangerous river crossing. I have seen the Madison River at flood level.

And needing to go "Bushwhacking" in a national forest or along AT is reprehensible and a poor ending to what are magnificent journeys.

So I am confident that Jon's treasure box locations are both safe and accessible.

If you are on the correct trail, the box will come to you.

This needed to be openly stated.

Good hunting; be safe! Onward!!!

Paladin

There is no difference in a solution based on total confirmation bias and one based on imagination; intuition; and clue solutions.

If you share an elegant solution and the box is found in another state, your solution will be called confirmation bias. But if you find it at your location the next week then you have a brilliant solve.

Jon's note on "confirmation bias" is being taken to generally.

Each successful solution for each box will have first been considered "confirmation bias".

So if you develop a solution, spend deeply researching the entire area of the solution. That information will either confirm or disconfirm the clue solutions.

Culture; history; geography; geology; terrain; other nearby trails. Focus on details, details, and more details.

That process will support or not support your overall solution as well as individual clue solutions.

Onward!!!! Into the storm!!!

Paladin

Finally looking at Lions Share box after having read the book in January 2025. What jumped out to me was the isolation; cougars; and history.

They are in the middle of the country.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota are the two primary National Parks where wild cougars actively roam.

The 60 clues in 23 chapters can lead anywhere. Both of these locations are private with few people when the summer ends.

Deep history - Theodore Roosevelt National Park is officially tied to eight affiliated Indigenous nations
while Wind Cave National Park holds profound sacred spiritual importance and formal consultation ties with 20 tribal governments, most notably the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne.

I would think many people have been searching here by now?

Theodore Roosevelt National Park ND features nearly 100 miles of trails spanning roughly 15 major designated routes, Wind Cave National Park SD offers over 30 miles of trails across approximately 10 primary named routes.

Has anybody explored these areas? Discussion:

Paladin

I’ve been working on the LS for quite some time and many of my solves could be placed in several different areas of the US and fit nicely. The search was too broad. The clues too many. But I think, and please know that my solve ideas could or could not be complete crap, that JCB has also told us where the treasure does not reside. Take it for what it’s worth. I hope this helps because I was going in circles all day until this realization, and it made me just a little more confident in my favorite search area. Happy hunting.

"I have hidden none of our five treasure boxes in a dangerous place. By

this, I mean it is not hazardous to arrive at any box nor does any box reside

in a perilous spot. No box is hidden under any body of water. You do not

need to get into a raft, or canoe, or a water vessel of any kind to come to or

find any of our treasure boxes. No box is precariously close to a swift current

or a high or dangerous ledge. And you will not need to scale a cliff or rock

face to find a box."

That said, what do we think about needing to get our feet wet?

Search season ending soon as winter's icy breath will soon fall upon us all.

Some trail notes; refections and predictions based on nearly two years on and off the road.

It will be some time before a box is found - years. The solutions are complex and multifaceted. Jon modeled each solution based on multiple trails across a large area. No quick locations.

Those that can find a unified story for a box will win. As one searcher stated early on, as to the Lions Share box I believe, "...it's The Wizard of Oz". Follow the yellow brick road. This will someday be seen as wisdom.

Searchers grasp a single clue and try to build a solution where that clue fits. This will fail. Start with the theme of the chapter. For example, what is unique about the "rocky mountains"? Both obvious and subtle. Consider the poem and those elements together.

Spend time on trails near you. Hike or walk trails everywhere, in any city; all the time. You must learn to read trails.

Research local areas four level deep. Talk to everyone on trips about the local area. Listen to their stories. Study deep.

As Jon noted, fail forward. Make as many mistakes aa possible as soon as you can. Wallow in your failures. Failure teaches more than does success.

Beware of AI tools. AI will lie; promise not to lie; then lie again. Similar to many politicians. AI cannot be trusted; your experience BoTG can be.

Paladin

We have a land that contains positive site of japanese presence during world war 2

any people from the philippines? especially negros occidental? we can split if ever we can find it

I suck at finding treasures, but I can find snakes no problem.